You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Angels Name Jerry Dipoto New GM, Let the Free Agency Filing Fun Begin

First thing’s first. Congratulations to the Cardinals! From ten games out of the Wild Card Race to World Series Champions, it was an inspiring comeback worthy of a classic baseball movie. Bravo and well deserved!

Angels Owner Arte Morneo welcomes new General Manager Jerry Dipoto into the fold at the Angels Saturday press conference. Photo by JOHN CORDES/ANGELS - from the Angels website, http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/

More importantly from my perspective though, the Angels did announce Jerry Dipoto as our new General Manager…as, you know, we might have guessed from all of the announcements announcing that the Angels could not in fact announce this move until after World Series was over. (Sorry, but as a sometime media and PR wonk, I love that kind of inspired work around the rules!). Oh, I know there has been a lot of talk since Tony Reagins’ departure about Kim Ng, which had me intrigued, and Andrew Friedman, which had me outright salivating even though I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But when it comes to personnel decisions and the Angels, reading speculation about it in the press, short of a very official sounding “unofficial” precursor to an announcement that is, is one of the biggest guarantees you can get that it isn’t going to happen.

If loose lips sink ships and one could logically infer that the inverse of this old school saying is true as well, the entire United States Navy could happily float on the closed lips of the Angels front office…with plenty of room for complex practice maneuvers and future growth. Besides, Andrew Friedman? Please. I don’t think you could separate him from Tampa Bay with a crowbar right now let alone for any money, especially after the miracle the Rays pulled off this season aided by his efforts on the personnel front.

So, now that the decision’s been made? Well, only time will tell but so far I’m happy about it. Dipoto is exactly what the Angels talked about bringing in when they first announced Reagins’ resignation, young, fresh and brand new to the GM position. For that reason, I only know what I have read about Dipoto in the last few days and what he said during the press conference. But I like what I’ve learned so far, especially his history in the Diamond Backs organization as Director of Scouting and Player Personnel and later as Interim General Manager. I think we can all agree that Arizona has made some excellent personnel decisions these last few seasons.

I liked what he had to say during the press conference about the Angels just needing a few key tweaks in the right direction rather than a complete overhaul, because the last I thing I want is for all of last season’s promising rookies to become this off season’s trade fodder for a string of great-for-the-next-two-seasons-and-then-blaaaah players. I like that Dipoto doesn’t align himself rigidly with either straight old school personnel theories or sabermetrics theories, but talks instead about an effective balance using ideas from all schools of thought. I liked hearing him talk about exploring all avenues for player acquisition including Latin America and Japan. And I love the fact that Dipoto’s passion for the game seems to be the first thing colleagues and teammates mention when describing him. Yes, all of this is talking a good game and talking and executing a good game do not always go hand in hand. But Dipoto has talked a sufficiently good game that I am intrigued and hopeful to see how he executes his game over the next several seasons.

The only thing I didn’t like was how obvious it became during the press conference that the rumors of Mike Scioscia’s supposed status as the “real GM behind a puppet GM” have grown wildly out of hand. When both Mike Scioscia and Arte Moreno feel a need to comment on and deny such speculation and Dipoto has to answer questions about his ability to work with Scioscia while still having his own voice heard, it’s all more than a little ridiculous. Please people! I love me some Mike Scioscia. He was one of my favorite Dodgers and one of the biggest reasons I switched camps to the other end of the 5 freeway all those years ago. But we’re talking about a man who routinely devises upwards of 125 different lineups for 162 games. With that level of…um…shall we say attention to detail?…can you imagine how much time he must put in before each game strategizing and such? Now can you imagine how much time a person with that level of “attention to detail” would spend studying, planning and executing trades, signings and the like? Now please remember that there are still only 24 hours in a day and that he has to spend some of them sleeping. Does Scioscia as some sort of puppet master GM still seem like a sound theory to you? Didn’t think so.

Welcome to the Angels organization Jerry Dipoto! May you live up to the good game you’ve talked so far.

2 Comments

I couldn’t agree more. I’d like to see a veteran salary moved.
I certainly hope, that it’s not Dan Haren. Even though I realize, that Arizona circumstance was different, I am only half kidding.
Otherwise, I very much line what I’ve heard so far from Jerry Dipoto. Can’t wait to see, how he’ll do.
Great Blog.

Thanks Barbara! And thank you for dropping by my blog. I agree. I would hope he wouldn’t trade Haren, especially when I think we can maybe fill the two holes in our rotation internally with Wiliams and Chatwood, but we absolutely could not fill three. I think trading one of the kids or Howie is more likely and, depending entirely on what we get in return, I might be okay with that…might. Trades always make me anxious, actually, because they never get to trade away just the guys you’d be glad to see go.

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